ELAINE BOLAND

• Age: 79

• Residence: Alvarado Estates area of San Diego

• Family: Husband, Bruce, four children and four grandchildren

• Charitable efforts: In addition to her volunteer work with the San Diego Armed Services YMCA and Avant Garde, Boland has been active in the Navy League and served on the committee for the local USO’s gala fundraiser for 20 years. She and her husband, who have both had breast cancer, were part of a public-awareness campaign in 2006 for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Boland also has served as decorations chair for the American Heart Association’s Heart Ball, and she and her husband have overseen a gala for Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala.

When Elaine Boland reflects on the past 25 years, she thinks of the many ways the volunteer group she cofounded has helped military families in the county. Members of Avant Garde have prepared 7,000 pounds of care packages, hosted holiday events and raised nearly $200,000 to support more than 40 programs run by the San Diego Armed Services YMCA.

Boland’s deep interest in helping military families blossomed years ago, growing from a college romance.

She was attending pharmacy school in Buffalo, N.Y., during the 1950s when a classmate named Bruce offered her assistance in the chemistry lab. He was so interested in talking to her that he burned his hand while handling some hot glass tubing.

In 1955, the couple married after Bruce Boland left college to join the Navy and graduated from flight school in Pensacola, Fla. He went on to become a rear admiral, spending 34 years in the Navy before retiring as “San Diego’s Navy mayor” in 1987.

Elaine Boland never became a pharmacist — she was too busy with two dozen moves over the years because of her husband’s assignments, with raising four children and with aiding thousands of other military households through her volunteer work.

After the Bolands settled permanently in San Diego, she became involved with the San Diego Armed Services YMCA and served as its first female chair in 1996. She’s a lifetime board member of the organization, which has a mission of making military life easier.

Boland and a friend, Les Frazee, established Avant Garde, which recruits civilian and military wives to assist with the Y’s many programs. Those include the Super Parent Holiday Shopping Day, which gives young military parents the chance to pick out toys for their children.

The group also helps host “Christmas You Missed,” a party held annually in June for military families that weren’t together during the holiday season because of deployments.

“Wherever there is a need, Avant Garde is there,” Boland said.

The following is Boland’s recent conversation with U-T San Diego about her charitable efforts.

Q: Your husband was in the Navy for more than three decades. Do you see the same things with today’s young enlisted wives and officers wives that you saw years ago?

A: There are still too many deployments. Bruce had made 13, most of them nine months long. And there wasn’t an Armed Services Y to give support.